Mummy Milli

This is one that has worked wonders with Monkey, and is the thing (other than his stunning eyes) that I will get comments on the most. 

Depending on your child it may or may not work, or it may need time or tweaking. I’ll also give you a bonus hack of what my cousin does that’s similar, but mine is even more simple (for me anyway)!

We made a conscious choice to not count down from three, it was something I always hated as a child and as a parent I realised how unnecessary it is. No matter what was happening the count down from three always made me feel like I was doing the wrong thing so with Monkey, I flipped it.

It is no longer, if I get down to one you’re in trouble instead it’s actually keep playing, you have 10 more seconds of fun till we move on to the next activity. We count up to 10 and encourage Monkey to keep doing what he is doing till we get there, then it is time to change. 

Monkey responds really well to this, so much so, he actually gets to do more. When we walk past a ride on car at the supermarket, the bane of may parents existence, and it’s actually less of a struggle and takes less time to just give him the count to 10. I had another parent watching me through one of these encounters and when Monkey climbed off after his count to 10 her comment was ‘I was expecting tears, and yet he is happy?’. 

I cannot promise it will work every time, because it sure doesn’t for us, but maybe 80 percent of the time it works and we move on smoothly. This is where I get most of the comments from onlookers. ‘Your child didn’t cry and demand more time, he just stopped. How does that work?’ 

Personally I think it works well for two main reasons (and I would like to say that I am not a psychologist) the first one being that the child doesn’t feel like they have done something wrong or they have a behaviour that needs to stop and number two we have prepared them in advance so they know what to expect. 

I also often give Monkey the choice of, you can play for 10 seconds and then climb off or we can keep moving and skip the toy. This choice gives him the feeling of having some control (which is extremely important during the toddler years) it also gets him invested and because it was his choice he seems happier sticking to the agreement.

An added benefit was that Monkey learnt to count to ten very fast, because he wanted to know how much time he had left to play. We haven’t sat down with him and counted to 10 specifically, we often try to organically include numbers in what we are doing and this has been another way of doing that, however he could count to 10 before his second birthday. On that note I have started making it a count to twenty sometimes, as he is slightly older (just over two and a half) and better at listening now but also to develop the next set of numbers.

My cousin uses something different but related in preparing her child for change. She has learned to dictate what she is going to do, but not just big changes- this is with everything. 

My cousin will even get to the level of ‘I’m going to make a coffee now’ which gives her daughter a chance to say how she wants to be involved instead of figuring it out when it’s too late and leading to a tantrum. Some days she wants to tamp the coffee, others it’s getting the milk out the fridge. She always wants to be involved in some way and this gives her that opportunity. 

This has been a big change for my cousin but has managed to cut tantrums down considerably so it has been very worthwhile for her. We have not had to go this far yet but Monkey is only two and a half so we may still be in the upswing for tantrums and we may get there, which will be fine if it happens. It will just take a lot of learning from me, but isn’t that what being a parent is all about? 

What have been your favourite and most impactful parenting hacks? Let me know in the comments, I could always use some more.